Rock, Meet Orb
by Shieldage
Summary: Willow's unimpressed by the Solomons' cover. Tommy's impressed by Dawn.


BtVs and the Buffyverse characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.

3rd Rock from the Sun is owned by its creators Bonnie and Terry Turner, and by NBC.

Filling a Fic-For-All Prompt and a Challenge from _Teri_ at Twisting the Hellmouth.

* * *

-Three weeks ago-

The High Commander was worried about the new arrival at Pendelton State University. She was an asset to to the school, her Earth wisdom being of such a high-caliber it rivaled his public-persona as one of the top leaders in the field of physics. Since he was the least educated of his team and his mediocre off-world education was barely a light-year ahead of the stuff he published, this was really saying something.

He had not expected such a person, so calm and collected, other than some breathless babbles, to be an alien, like him, but... He had seen her turn the lights off in a room while closing the door behind her, not even nearing the switch.

That and several other things fell into place and he assigned his security officer to investigate her more closely.

* * *

-Last week-

When the red-head first turned up at her door, Willow had been amused.

She had read Dick Solomon's papers and, detecting the otherworldly nature of some of his theories, had moved to Rutherford to check him out.

She had swabbed his coffee cup one day and sent it in to be tested. Everything came back human, which was pretty much irrelevant because his soul and, as she soon discovered, the souls of his family weren't.

For someone so smart, Dick was truly dense. If he hadn't picked up on the hints she was dropping by the end of the week, she would've levitated a cow and smacked him with it.

This 'Sally', obviously an ex-Champion of some kind, had probably been sent over to her house to be romantically involved with _someone_, due to Willow's apparent tastes. As Xander had relocated with Willow on this covert operation, her fellow red-head had spent the past two weeks bouncing back and forth between the witch and the carpenter.

They really should have put up a sign at the Solomon residence 'Ex-Demons Here, Photos $5.00' and have been done with it.

From what she had seen of the family and Tommy's records when she had hacked his school, Dick's son was much smarter than his father... Smarter even than she had been at that age, and that's a scary thing.

She smiled as she ran down a few ages in her head and placed a quick long-distance phone call.

* * *

-Present-

Dawn Summers had been happy to get away from Buffy and come to Rutherford. Going undercover and investigating a sweet and honest guy her own age? Coolness.

She hadn't expected to start feeling like this...

They are on the roof of Tommy's house, Dick having just gone inside to give them some 'alone' time.

"Oh I can't remember being this happy, before," she says, leaning back against the blanket they'd brought up here.

"Of course, that's not my fault," she frowns, and finishes quietly: "They really should have included better memories along with the basic package..."

"Hmm?" he asks, perking up at this apparent slip.

Both sides had thought that this had gone on long enough and had given the teenagers permission to spill the beans. Or, in the Solomon's case: 'Spill the linguine.'

"Oh, it's nothing..." she replies.

Tommy had been holding out, because he was having a good time and didn't want to spoil it. But, this opening... "Please?"

"Alright, but promise you won't laugh," she says. At his nod she continues: "Okay, I wasn't born until a couple of years ago, some people fashioned this body, pushed me into it, then made everyone, including me, believe I was this Superwoman's sister and had always been her sister."

Tommy laughs so hard he nearly falls off the roof.

"You promised," she says crossly. "It's not funny!"

"Yes it is!" he manages between chuckles. "We're not human either! We were dropped into a Rambler with our regular memories and these bodies and no idea whatsoever on how to use them."

"Get out!"

"We are-" he begins, then catches himself. "Oh. Yeah, we're actually asexual beings who replicate by mailing bits to each other. I'm the oldest by centuries, but I didn't get which body to get dropped into. Sally's this macho leader/warrior-type reduced to second-in command and Harry's... Harry."

"A bunch of monks knew I was in danger and put me somewhere I'd be protected and unnoticed," she explains. "I have all the memories of growing up, so it's definitely not been anything but the average awkwardness for me... Oh yeah, my blood opens dimensional barriers during a certain conjunction that already happened and won't happen again during my lifetime."

"Dimensional barriers? May I run some non-invasive tests on you?"

"I'm not sure, the last time, the barriers nearly fell apart completely and..." she says with pain in her eyes.

"I've got as much of a phobia of being torn apart by the government as the next off-planet being, I've seen enough of Marvin the Martian, but I really am interested in you..." he trails off, looking into her eyes.

"Heh... By you," he shrugs. "Anyway it's my government and the Big Giant Head who sent us here and gave us bodies so we could investigate and learn. Don't worry, it's not an invasion-type mission... Dick's evil twin trapped him in an invisible box and tried to conquer the world, but we stopped him. We like you guys un-enslaved."

"Evil twin?" she laughs. "Heh, my best friend got split into two halves, one incompetent and one immensely suave. My best bud accidentally pulled her vampire self from another reality, not involving me bleeding, by the way."

"Heh, our boss thought Dick was becoming unstable and manufactured a wife for him, which nearly cost him his relationship with his human girlfriend... When we finally started dreaming after several years of being human we thought our brains were melting and we nearly left for good..."

"It's nice to be able to talk to someone about this," he says, considering. "How long have they been asking you to tell this stuff to me?"

"Since before I knew you, but," she says as she leans against him, sighing contentedly. "Now that I'm here I don't want to leave..."

He runs his hand through her hair for a bit, entranced by the feel, then turns his mind to other things.

"So, which rock do you come from?" he asks, looking at the stars.

"No," she answers, snuggling against his chest. "It was more of a kind of green glowing orb."

"Ah," Tommy says, wondering what kind of society would evolve on a light source. "Must have been hard to get to sleep at nights."

"... What?"


End file.
